The Limits of Acceptability: The Glorious Debauchee Jacques Vallée Des Barreaux. A Case Study

This paper dedicated to Jacques Vallée Des Barreaux is a case study in order to emphasize the heuristic virtue of the notion of acceptability in social sciences and humanities. We take into account two levels of analysis : the first is a clandestine poetic production, where an original and radical philosophical posture is adopted, but which is also composed by more innocuous verses; the second is the public character of Des Barreaux, famous for his scandalous and outrageous behavior. We suggest the formula of restricted acceptability in order to deal with these two levels and their relationships. Texts whose publication in the author's name would be unacceptable are accepted and meet an audience in a relative clandestinity. Des Barreaux’s character, whose behavior is considered scandalous, is fully integrated into the social life of the court and the high society in Paris and escapes public condemnation ; he is deemed acceptable in his familiar social places. Using the notion of limited acceptability allows us to highlight that the limits of what is acceptable in the same years of the hardening of the Catholic order in France was much looser and resilient than one might imagine.